Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
9-2011
Abstract
We investigate trust relationships between senior business executives and their overseas partners. Drawing on the similarity-attraction paradigm, social categorization theory, and the distinction between cognition- and affect-based trust, we argue that executives trust their overseas partners differently, depending on the partners’ cultural ethnicity. In a field survey of 108 Chinese senior executives, we found that these executives have higher affect-based trust in overseas partners of the same cultural ethnicity as themselves; cognition-based trust is associated with affect-based trust differently when overseas partners are of the same or different cultural ethnicity. We also examine the role of relative firm size and age in shaping intra- and intercultural trust. Relative firm size has a stronger negative effect on executives’ cognition-based trust if their partners are of a different cultural ethnicity. Although firm age does not have a negative effect on executives’ affect-based trust as hypothesized, we found firm age to be positively associated with affect-based trust for partners of the same cultural ethnicity. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of this pattern of inter- and intra-cultural trust on international business and networking (guanxi) dynamics in China.
Keywords
trust, social identity theory, China
Discipline
Asian Studies | Business | Organizational Behavior and Theory
Research Areas
Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources
Publication
Journal of International Business Studies
Volume
42
Issue
9
First Page
1150
Last Page
1173
ISSN
0047-2506
Identifier
10.1057/jibs.2011.35
Publisher
Palgrave
Citation
Jiang, Crystal X.; CHUA, Roy Y. J.; Kotabe, Masaaki; and Murray, Janet Y..
Effects of Cultural Ethnicity, Firm Size, and Firm Age on Senior Executives’ Trust in their Overseas Business Partners: Evidence from China. (2011). Journal of International Business Studies. 42, (9), 1150-1173.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/3902
Copyright Owner and License
Publisher
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2011.35
